Glimpses
by blue-jean-serenades
Summary: Glimpses through the eyes of those who have come into contact with the unforgettable Winchester boys over the years.
1. Demons

**Sorry it took me so long. FF was being a butt. If you can't guess, the narrator here is Meg. (She was kind of awesome, actually, despite being a crazy evil demon.)**

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She thinks she could learn love from Sam Winchester's eyes.

She's watched him for a while now, observed from afar his interactions with the people around him. What they say is true: the Winchester bond could move mountains, start wars, fight every last creature of darkness on this planet and win. And she thinks that they could do it—together, they could beat Azazel, foil his master plan, topple destiny and overturn fate.

But divided they are weak. And so she will divide them.

The ties that bind them are the strongest she's ever seen. They're soulmates, the two brothers—she can _smell _it on them, the taint of love, and it disgusts her. It is an alien emotion, one she's not familiar with: she knows of hate, of anger, of sin, but the all-encompassing _family_ is unthinkable. It's a potent word—with one use, all mistakes are absolved, all faults forgiven. Mercy is another concept she does not like. They orbit around each other, the Winchesters, like twin moons, and anger is melted away by the heat of two decades of shared history. Sam looks at his brother with eyes like suns, but she equates suns with fire; everything must be relearned with this new thing called _love_.

She is a demon. She knows how to corrupt, and Sam Winchester, for all of his efforts to be good, is easily corruptible. Dean is his rock, the post that supports him, but without his brother by his side Sam is weaker than he knows. She meets him first while he is alone, after he and his brother have parted ways and his loyalties are divided, and that is when he is hooked. He trusts her without thinking because without Dean he is a mass of contradictions—kind but prone to cruelty, trusting but suspicious by nature, innocent but guilty in the worst way. He is all light from the outside, but inside there is a dark, rotting core. His brother helps keep the darkness at bay, but they cannot always be at each other's side.

Right now, she is watching them. They don't know it, but she is—she's always there, the shadow in the corner of their eye. They are so attuned to the other that they orient themselves around each other like satellites. Dean moves, and Sam unconsciously shifts himself towards him; at the most minute change in Sam's posture, Dean will look up. Vigilance for his brother is second-nature to him.

She has no desire to love, but if she did, all she would ever know could be learned by studying the Winchesters.

His eyes, she thinks, are his weakest point. Sam's eyes are an illustration, a diagram of his feelings drawn out as clear as day. _The eyes are the window to the soul_. All his emotions are displayed on his face—she recognizes frustration, boredom, anger, sadness, as if there is a neon sign above his head proclaiming his feelings at all times. The littler expressions, the more subtle ones, are most often directed at Dean, or when Sam is lost in thought. Affection, empathy, nostalgia—and that fleeting, elusive one, the one seldom found in the Winchesters' eyes: _happiness_. It can be found most frequently when they look at each other, or when they are in the car they call home, or when they are repeating the most insignificant little traditions—bickering at gas stations or playing pranks on each other in cheap motel rooms. She will never understand humans. Their little quirks, all the bizarre things that somehow afford them joy.

_She_ is most satisfied when she is hurting people, when they scream in agony and fear and she feels that rush of control, that thrill, the demonic equivalent of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She senses it sometimes in Sam—only a washed-out version, and only for the briefest of seconds, but every once in a while it is there, and when it is the emotion _fear _creeps into his all-too-expressive eyes. He is always without his brother on these occasions, always alone, with nothing to combat the darkness that hides within him. Sam Winchester is a time bomb, ticking and ticking and waiting to go off. One day the darkness will come out, spreading its oily fingers around his heart and his mind and those silly eyes and finally his brother, seeping into the person who is closest to him, and when it does that is when she knows he will break. She could almost feel akin to the boy called Sam, almost relate to that darkness hiding within him (only she has long made her peace with hers), except for one tiny problem—his brother.

Because when Dean is around it fades, when big brother is next to him and calling him _Sammy _and exercising his foul vocabulary the darkness recedes. She does not relate to him, no matter how much she _could_, because inside Sam Winchester there is also love of the highest degree—a light that leaks out in his laugh and his smile and in the way he looks as his brother, sinking into the darkness and obliterating it. She does not know Sam Winchester, because Sam Winchester loves.

And demons do not know love.


	2. Bitter

When they first walked into her bar, Ellen didn't recognize them.

Two young men, one taller and darker than the other, but the way they moved around each other suggested they were brothers. Her grip on the gun stiffened, and she glared out at them from the darkened closet. Whoever was breaking into her bar, she would give 'em hell.

"Looks empty to me," the taller one said.

The other picked up a shotglass and inspected it, sniffing. "Yeah. Me too."

Thirty seconds later, her fiery, blonde daughter was jabbing Dean in the back with a .45, and she had her gun aimed straight at Sam's head. She didn't know those were their names, then. She learned that later, after she found out more about them, after they started coming more often.

After she realized they were John Winchester's boys.

She'd always figured John Winchester would die before he turned fifty, so it was no surprise that he'd been missing for months. He had been too desperate, too full of the memory of his wife, of that aching, burning desire for revenge. Ellen had only met Mary once, but she would never forget the woman. Graceful and beautiful and funny and smart, Mary had seemed like an angel, like something beyond the mundane trappings of this world. Ellen disliked her for it, but everyone else seemed to love her.

Then again, Ellen hadn't disliked her at the time. At the time, she'd been so caught up in Mary's charm that she felt like she couldn't breathe, like she might float away at any given moment. The hatred came afterward, after John Winchester had come back from a hunt without her husband, and Ellen had lain awake in bed all night thinking black thoughts about how Mary Campbell-Winchester's sacrifice had driven one man to madness, and several more to their deaths.

John Winchester was gone, and she fervently hoped never to see him again.

The boys, though, they were curious creatures. They stood close to each other, guarded, with one hand on their guns, and when they were together she could feel the power thrumming between them. That unspoken connection. If Sam lunged, Dean was at his side; if Dean fingered his knife, Sam was instantly ready to back him up. Ellen thought it was remarkable, the peculiar intensity of their bond. She also thought it was unnatural.

And she resented them, not only because they were Winchesters, but because they were putting her daughter in danger. Wherever any of their kind went, destruction followed. They were like a hurricane, and Ellen hated that they could turn her life upside down so easily. They didn't seem to realize the effect they had on other people, the trail of broken bodies they left behind them, or if they did, they buried it at the bottom of their minds. The same way every other hunter dealt with guilt: by ignoring it.

Sam, more than anything, disturbed her. On the outside, he was all smiles and politeness—he was intelligent and well-meaning and he tried _so damn hard_, so much harder than his brother to be kind, to be trustworthy, to be normal. That was the worst part; his innocence was entirely without artifice, his compassion terrible in its honesty. His destiny, the horrible darkness lurking inside him that he tried so desperately to fight—he didn't even realize any of it. She pitied him, but she also feared him in a way that she didn't Dean. Dean was normal, for her standards. He was broken, and screwed-up, and traumatized, and had more issues than _Playboy _and _Sports Illustrated _combined, but in every respect other than his relationship with his brother he was exactly like all the other hunters she'd ever known. Not safe, necessarily, but _familiar_. Sam was not familiar, and he certainly wasn't safe.

She didn't like Jo around them. In one way and in one way only was she like Dean, and it was that they had both tried desperately to keep a loved one from ending up a hunter. For Dean it hadn't worked; Ellen still maintained a fleeting hope that one day she would convince Jo that this nightmare was not for her. But her daughter was the stubbornest person she'd ever met, except for maybe John Winchester, and by God if she wanted to run away and hunt with Dean (Ellen hated the chemistry between them, hated the way she wouldn't meet his eyes and he would try to pretend he didn't care about her) then she would.

Ellen is many things. She is a hunter, a mother, a wife, a widow, a sister, a bartender, an innkeeper. She is crazy and desperate and angry and loving and wild and lost. She is bitter, and she hates the Winchesters.

Sam looks up at her, catches her eye. Smiles, because he notices that she isn't talking, and her stomach turns. He's so kind, so unaware of what is coming for him.

She hates the Winchesters, but she used to feel compassion for them. Her heart used to move for them, a long time ago, back when it was still beating, because she recognized the haunted look in their eyes and recognized their last name and recognized their father and _knew_, deep in her bones, that something evil would come for them.

They were Winchesters, and darkness followed them like a roiling storm cloud on the horizon. Death was perpetually knocking on their door, demons forever trailing them, chaos and destruction always a breath away. Because they were Winchesters, they were trouble.

But she sees the look in each brother's eye, the strange security they find in each other's presence.

And she thinks, with a grim smile, that it's ironic. How the brothers shadowed by devastation have the most uncommon love, the kind of love that shines out of their very souls and blinds those around them, the light in the middle of the darkness that keeps them standing when the nights are long and cold and evil things howl in the shadows.

Ironic, that the fiercest love she has ever seen comes from the two most tragically doomed boys she has ever met.

Ellen tosses back a shot, lets the alcohol burn its way down her throat and numb her so that the only light she's thinking about is coming from the bare, flickering bulb above her head. She needs to be far drunker than this before she can stomach thinking about them for more than five minutes.

She has little love left in her heart. There is some for Jo, some for her son; there is a tender place that she saves for her husband, may he rest in peace (unlikely). But the vast majority of it is consumed with rot, taken over by the bitterness that has gnawed at her ever since she met John Winchester so many years ago.

He killed her husband, and she is bitter. He ruined her life, and she is bitter. His sons stole her daughter, and she is bitter. Their love is unparalleled, and she is bitter because it is not hers.

Ellen takes her last sip and turns off the lights. She won't sleep easy tonight.


	3. Lost, Found

She knew she would fall in love with Sam Winchester.

Jessica had always a peculiar sense of self-awareness to her. She knew when she was being rude, she knew when she was about to get an A on her exams, she knew who she was going to get along with and who she wasn't. And from the moment she saw Sam Winchester, she knew she was going to fall in love with him.

And she knew that he would be the end of her.

Sam was everything she had ever wanted in a guy: sweet, funny, handsome, smart. From the outside, he was all easy smiles and self-deprecating humor. He was the smartest person she'd ever met, and the most humble. Her friends were all jealous, her sisters made inappropriate jokes, her father respected him, and her mother would have married him herself, given half a chance.

But there was a darkness to him that Jess couldn't quite figure out. His little quirks, his oddities (he always kept salt on him, and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why), these things made her nervous. Sometimes she wondered if knew Sam Winchester at all, or if she only knew the elaborate persona he projected to the outside world.

Even when he was at his most relaxed, there were things she didn't understand about him. He was secretive and guarded. He never talked about his family, and the one and only time she saw him fight, it scared the hell out of her. The sweet, kind Sam she thought she knew turned into a fighting machine, dark and powerful and efficient in a deadly sort of way, and the idiot who'd tried to grope her was down in a little under three seconds. Afterwards they went out to dinner, but he was on edge for the rest of the evening.

Jess never made the mistake of thinking she knew him again.

He kept a framed picture on his nightstand. She'd seen it before, when she stayed at his apartment after a long night out or caught him unawares (which was hard to do). When they moved in together she asked about it.

"That's my brother," said Sam reluctantly. The picture was of a handsome young man in a gray T-shirt and leather jacket—he looked about twenty-five to Sam's twenty-one—leaning against a black Chevy Impala. Jess recognized the model: Her dad had been an auto freak, and he worshiped classic cars like they held the secret to eternal life.

"Oh," said Jess. "What's his name?"

Sam turned away, started rearranging papers that were already lined up perfectly on his desk. "Dean," he finally admitted, and there was a softness in his voice when he said the name that Jess instantly heard. He said it with reverence—like it was a sacred word, a prayer. Two decades' worth of memories, all tied together in frayed knot with that one name: _Dean_.

But she pushed it back, buried the dark realization that she was not Sam's number one underneath smiles and laughter and love. Because she loved Sam, loved him more than anyone she'd ever known, and she knew that he loved her. She would have been happy with him.

He would never have been happy with her. Not while Dean was still alive, not while his brother was still out there without him. Sam's identity was so closely linked to Dean that she wondered if he'd ever been away from his brother in his _life _before going to college. It was like there was something missing, the invisible puzzle piece she couldn't quite get a hold on, and with Dean the missing part clicked into place. The happiest she'd ever seen him was the time he got drunk (which he rarely did in her presence, or anyone else's) and started recalling stories of him and his brother.

She felt the beginning of the end when Dean showed up. The instant she walked into the living room and saw Sam standing next to his brother, she knew it was over. Knew that this was it, that the three blissful years she'd spent with Sam were done. Nothing could ever replace the irrational tie he felt to his brother—she could almost see it, the bond humming between them, that easy familiarity they had with each other.

And when Sam packed his things and kissed her and said he'd be back soon, he just needed to take care of a few things with his brother, she smiled and nodded and pretended that she didn't realize what was actually happening. That she didn't know, in every fiber of her being, that she would never see him again. Sam loved her, she knew he did, but there was simply not enough room in his heart for two people. Dean's presence was an eclipse; it overpowered everything else in his life, blotted it out like it was never there at all. Jess was a firefly to Dean's Sun, drowned out in the brilliant halo of _SamandDean_,_ DeanandSam_. Three years—three glorious, perfect years—couldn't even come close to what they had with each other.

Jessica had always known the end would come.

And when the demon came, when Azazel pinned her to the ceiling and tore through her stomach and she died, screaming, the smell of burning flesh all around her, she didn't blame him. She loved him—and besides, she'd always known Sam Winchester would be the death of her.

In her final moments, she wondered when she'd lost him, or if she'd ever really had him at all.


	4. Harvey Lane

It was snowing when the Winchesters moved in.

Hannah watched them from the kitchen window as they silently hefted big cardboard boxes into the house. Two boys, pale and grim with sunken eyes, and their tall, dark father. They continued unpacking quietly as the snow froze their eyelashes and melted on their skin, and they didn't talk to her. Not one word.

She came to know their strange habits in the time they lived in the house on Harvey Lane. The boys rarely left the house, except for school. Most days the father went out early in the morning, and didn't come home until late at night. She thought maybe he was a drunk, or a druggie, and she pitied his sons, but despite all her wild conjectures she didn't know for sure. The Winchesters were like shadows, a vague and indistinguishable presence in the corner of your eye. They were the people you thought dimly back on years later, after you had a house and a family and gray hairs of your own, and wondered about. The ones you never quite could get a hold on.

She watched them for weeks, never saying a word. The older boy was quiet and responsible, with big, solemn eyes and a few freckles sprinkled liberally across his nose. The little one was small and dark and the same as all the other toddlers Hannah had ever known, except for being maybe a little bit quieter and a little bit smarter than most. Dean smiled politely and answered the door and looked a little bit wary each time she brought things like banana bread and casseroles over, evaded her questions about the whereabouts of his father with little non-responses like "oh, he's on his way back" or "he's just out running some errands" or "he had some work to do." She tried not to be cynical, tried to squelch her niggling doubts and paste a big smile on her face. She tried to pretend it was out of sheer curiosity and not a desperate desire to be needed that she felt so interested in the two Winchester boys.

And then, one day, Sam was sick.

She was sitting on the couch turning the photo over in her hands when he came. Two sharp raps, brisk and businesslike, and it wasn't just because no one else could possibly have a reason to visit her that she knew it was John Winchester. Nobody knocked like that, or at least not on her street; they rang the doorbell, polite and unobtrusive. He stuck out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood. Not for the first time, Hannah wondered why he had come in the first place.

She opened the door. "Hello."

John didn't smile, but his eyes stared out at her, a spark of worry in them—and for just a moment, she thought she could see some of the softness they might have held, once upon a time. "Hello," he said, rather sheepishly. Or maybe it was just an act to get her to agree to whatever it was he was about to ask. She couldn't tell. "Listen, I was wondering…"

He paused, seemingly unable to get the words out, and she filled the silence with an awkward invitation. "Would—would you like to come in?"

"No, that's fine." He cleared his throat. "I'm afraid tomorrow I'm going out of town for a few days, on a business trip, and I wanted to know if you could keep an eye out for my boys. I wouldn't normally ask, but it's just that my littlest son, Sam, he's coming down with something. A cold, or…I don't know. Nothing serious, of course, but I would feel more comfortable if I knew someone was there to maybe call the house before they go to bed at night, make sure they're okay."

Hannah blinked twice. "I…well, I mean…"

"I know it's a lot to ask," John admitted. "You won't need to do much, just pop in once a day or something. My son, Dean, he's very responsible, and he can take care of Sam by himself."

"He's eleven," Hannah said.

John's eyes turned hard and defiant, silently daring her to make judgments on his parenting. "He's mature for his age. I trust him." _I'm sure you do_, she thought. John's face tightened. "Believe me, I know what I'm doing—"

"I'll be happy to check in on them," Hannah interrupted. Hope fluttered in her chest like a wounded bird. "Are you sure you don't want me to do it more often?"

But no, once a night was perfectly fine. So she went into the kitchen, baked some cookies to bring over, and rummaged in the dusty corners of her pantry to see if she had some easy-to-make soup for the boys. It had been a while since Hannah had been able to mother someone, or even just go through the motions. It felt nice, but also strange—sort of rusty, like her body had forgotten how to do it.

The first stars were just starting to rise when she went over the next night. She cleared her throat and pasted a smile on her face and clutched the cookies to her chest, trying to ignore the ache in her throat. She wanted this to go well.

Dean answered the door on her first knock, like he had been waiting for her. He didn't say anything, just gave her a sullen nod, turned, and disappeared down the hallway.

"Dean?" She stepped over the threshold cautiously.

"Yeah." He appeared in the hallway again. "And you're Hannah. Nice to meet you."

She blinked. "Nice to meet you, too. Listen, I was—"

"Hang on. I have to go give this to Sam." He turned and headed up the stairs, clutching a glass of water and some Tylenol. With another blink, Hannah followed, setting the plate down on a table and clumping up the carpet-covered stairs after him.

Sam was in bed, covered in sweat and itchy blankets. Relief flashed across his face, pale under his tan, when he saw Dean. When Hannah appeared in the doorway behind him, it turned to anxiety. "Dean?"

Dean sat down on the corner of the bed. "Don't worry. Dad sent her over here to check on us." He gently coaxed his brother into downing the cough syrup, smoothing back Sam's hair with sure, practiced hands. Hannah twisted her fingers and stood in the middle of the room, feeling useless.

"Um…are you boys hungry? Do you want me to make you something to eat?"

Dean glanced up. He looked vaguely startled, like he'd forgotten she was there. "Oh. No, that's fine, I can cook something for him." And Hannah wondered just what sort of eleven-year-old boy knew how to cook.

Sam tugged at his brother's sleeve. "Can I have a sandwich?"

"Sure!" Hannah chirped, relieved to be doing something, even if the question hadn't really been hers to answer. Dean ruffled his brother's hair, rose and went out the door. Hannah followed him out, thudding down the stairs again. "I can make him a sandwich, if you want," she offered.

"Uh, no, that's okay," said Dean. He was already in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards.

"Are you sure? Because I don't mind, really. I mean, you look exhausted."

Dean looked more uncomfortable than exhausted. "No, thanks. Sam doesn't really like it when other people cook for him. I mean, it's weird, but I don't think he'd eat it if you made it. Besides, you don't really know what he wants. He's a picky eater." Dean turned around and muttered, "Pain in the ass, actually," but she thought maybe he didn't mind all that much.

"Oh," Hannah said, after a moment. She went and stood in the corner and pretended to clean her glasses. "Well. If you need any help, let me know." But he didn't, and after standing around uselessly in the Winchester home for another ten or fifteen minutes, she went home. Sam didn't want her, and Dean didn't need her. No one needed her.

She cried when she stared at the picture that night, and then slept fitfully.

Sunrise brought with it a flood of fresh optimism, a stubborn hope that maybe the Winchester boys would like her, maybe yesterday didn't matter, maybe they would need her after all. It was strange, how responsible, how _self-sufficient_ Dean was. It seemed like he'd been caring for Sam his whole life, even though Hannah tried to convince herself that he hadn't—that was John's job, wasn't it, to take care of his sons when they were sick, not to leave his kids alone in an empty house for three whole days.

She baked more cookies because it calmed her down and then counted hours until the sun went down, sometimes staring at the picture, but mostly just sitting, waiting until it was late enough to walk next door. This, she felt, this would be it—a whole day had passed, things had to have changed, she had to be of some use _now_. Hannah felt a strange sense of desperation rising in her, threatening to choke her. Sam looked just like _he _had at this age, all curly hair and knobby knees and big brown eyes.

Dean let her in without a sound. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. "Shh," he said. "Sam's asleep. He was up all night coughing."

Hannah stepped inside. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, me too," Dean muttered. "Especially 'cause he kept _me _up all night, too." Hannah took a closer look at him and noticed the dark rings under his eyes, the lines of weariness on his face that looked grossly out of place on someone so young.

"You should get some sleep," she suggested.

He shook his head. "No. I'm fine." He was lying, but Hannah didn't call him on it. She had the feeling that it was an argument she could not win.

"Okay," she said. "I brought cookies."

He frowned. "More?"

"I bake when I have nothing else to do," Hannah told him. She felt strangely young in this presence of this boy, like he had seen things far worse and more terrible than she could possibly imagine. She made herself dismiss the possibility, because if it was true it would be tragic, and also because Hannah did not think there were so very many things in this world that could be worse than losing someone.

He shrugged. "Oh. Well, I guess you can put them in the kitchen." He waved a hand towards the kitchen, and then went upstairs to check on Sam.

Hannah went into the kitchen and put the cookies down. The walls were bare, the counters clean, the cabinets painted a bland and impersonal shade of honey. It was almost as if they didn't really live here at all, but were instead simply renting the house. Hannah thought it was strange that they had no pictures on the walls, no blankets left lying around, no dirty dishes in the sink.

Then she stopped thinking about it, because it was unsettling.

Dean came back a few minutes later. As soon as he walked through the door, he stopped dead. "What are you doing?"

Hannah looked down at her hands.

"Oh," she said, faintly surprised. "I'm…well, I guess I'm making him a bologna sandwich. My—my son, he used to eat them. When he was sick."

There was a quiet for a few seconds.

"Sam hates bologna," Dean said, with the oddest expression on his face.

_Oh_. Hannah's lips formed the word, but she did not say it. Feeling foolish, she gathered up the provisions and put them back where they belonged, looking at Dean as little as possible. Her cheeks burned. She thought this meant she was embarrassed, though she wasn't quite sure. It had been so long since she had felt anything that for a few moments, she did not recognize it.

Hannah only stayed a little while longer, and then gathered her things and returned home. Then she called John and told him that she had a family emergency and couldn't look after his boys any longer. She thought this should have bothered him more than it did—he sounded distracted on the phone, like something more important was going on behind him. From the other end of the line, she thought she heard screaming.

That was the last time she called John Winchester.

Hannah went to sleep holding the picture, and then woke up the next day and slipped back into her old routine without a second thought. She still followed the Winchesters, but she did not talk to them. Not anymore.

It was impossible not to notice them; they were fascinating in their peculiar attachment to each other. John loved his boys, but he did not care for them. Not like he should. And Hannah had the strangest feeling that the boys shared something between them that nothing else in their life could ever touch. No, it was impossible not to notice them, she thought, but it _was_ possible to pretend that you didn't.

When they moved out two months later, Hannah was secretly glad.

She did not ever forget them. The memory of the Winchesters stayed, Dean's blazing eyes forever embedded on the backs of her eyelids.

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_A/n: This little monster right here has been giving me hell for weeks and WEEKS. There's a lot of things about the story that were in my head, things that I'm not sure made it into the piece. For instance, Hannah. Strange lady, that Hannah—in case you didn't guess (and I don't know why you would), her son was the person in the picture that she always stares at. He's dead. The reason she wants so badly to be involved in the Winchesters' lives is because of that, because she sees her son in Sam, because she has a mother's instinctive protectiveness over kids, because she feels useless and empty without her son. Kind of depressing and weird and pointless and random, and it was going to be totally kickass, but since it turned out so long (it's like 2500 words, just this chapter alone) and since I've been working on this for so long, I kind of just gave up and tacked on an ending. I had this whole master plan and everything, too. But, well, I hope it wasn't as bad as I think it was. /rambling. Comments are love!_


	5. First

Lisa has a sister.

Her sister's name is Jennifer, and Jennifer was the one who taught Lisa how to tie her shoelaces. Jennifer was the one who told Lisa that sex wasn't just a special hug when she was in third grade; Jennifer was the one who embarrassed Lisa in front of her boyfriend at graduation; Jennifer was the one who cried with her on the phone after Eric-the-jerk got her pregnant and then moved to Arizona.

Lisa has a sister, and she loves her sister, and if her sister died she would cry.

She had thought she understood Dean and Sam. When Dean came into her life he was young and handsome and he carried a gun, and if Lisa hadn't fallen in love with him the instant he walked into the bar, she did as soon as he looked at her with those eyes and gave her some cheesy pickup line in that voice and said _So, what do you guys do for fun around here? _She thought she knew him, thought she recognized the faint traces of sadness behind his smile, the huge empty space next to him like a guilty secret. Then he left, and she tried to bury the memory of his smile and his skin and his voice, tried to tuck it away underneath oceans of memories of failed first dates and Ben and PTA meetings.

Then he came back, ripping open the half-healed scars of that night so many years ago. Lisa tried to pretend it didn't matter, tried to pretend she didn't ache at the sight of him. She tried to do a lot of things, not a lot of which actually worked out.

The sadness in his eyes was gone then. He still looked tired, jaded, old beyond his years, but the unspoken hole inside of him was not there anymore. _Sam_, she learned later. Sam was the one who filled in the cracks in Dean's armor, the only one in whose presence he lost that guarded, _yeah well who's asking _exterior.

For a brief period she was jealous of Sam, before she realized it was futile. Nothing she did could ever replace him, could ever cause him to be displaced in his spot at number-one on Dean's priority list. Sometimes she thought it was love that kept him there, that familial bond, and sometimes she thought it was more. Sometimes she thought it was just habit. Either way, it didn't matter. Lisa thought she accepted it, thought she understood it.

She always seemed to think that, and it never turned out to be the truth.

She didn't see him for a long time after that, after he walked away from her that afternoon, turned down her offer of safety, of security. Of a home. _But it wasn't_, she realizes later, it wasn't a home, because the only home Dean could ever know was with Sam, and she was not Sam. She was Lisa, and second.

She was okay with being Dean's second for a while. She accepted it, embraced it—and then the Apocalypse came, then Dean appeared on her porch and told her that there was a hell of a lot she didn't know, a hell of a lot that was about to happen, and he didn't know if he'd get out in one piece but if he did he promised to find her. To come back to her. There was an itch crawling under Lisa's skin that said this was bad, that the only way Dean would come back would be if Sam was gone—and she didn't know what that would do to him, she didn't know if she would be able to take Dean without Sam, if he would be anything more than a shell of a man (_except she resolved to take him in anyway, because even a shell of Dean was better than no Dean_).

Lisa thought that he always came back into her life the _instant_ she'd finally gotten over him.

And then he found her again, and it was everything she had suspected it would be and _oh, so much worse_. He was broken, completely and utterly broken, and he drank too much and his smile was twisted and sometimes at night when he thought she couldn't hear, Lisa heard him crying, almost soundlessly. Quietly weeping for Sam, for the world, for himself. For a thousand other things Lisa knew nothing of. Mostly, she thought, he cried for Sam.

Sometimes Lisa thinks he will be the end of her. In the end, she believes, she might break, because every time he comes back into her life he shatters another one of her glass walls, destroys another one of her masks, continually beating down all her guards until she is left with nothing—exposed, naked, vulnerable. Until everything she's ever known is laid bare, and God if Lisa doesn't know, deep in her bones, that she lives and dies by Dean Winchester.

She lives and dies by him, but he lives and dies by another. There's no room left in him; the image of his brother is burned into the backs of his eyelids, and when he closes his eyes at night, it's not Lisa he sees, but Sam. And she knows he loves her, she _knows_ he does—but he's loved Sam for longer. She will never be his first, will never be his all, will never be the person for whom he stops and drops everything.

She thinks she's never known anyone quite like the Winchesters. They fascinate her, and they sadden her, and they scare the hell out of her. The devotion they have for each other is terrifying: Dean goes to Hell and back for Sam, Sam does the same for him, and neither can live without the other. She's never seen anything like it, never even _experienced _anything remotely similar because yeah, if Jen died Lisa would be sad, absolutely heartbroken—but she wouldn't just _stop functioning_, not like Dean did. Not like Sam did.

She loves Dean, but sometimes she also hates him. For what he does, to her, to her family.

No, Lisa knows she will never be his first.

But he will always be hers.


	6. Jealous

**Hi, guys. Well, first update in a while. Crazy real life was crazy, what can I say? I'm a little rusty, so if this isn't up to par, please forgive me. I have yet to get back into the fanfiction groove, but I'm trying.**

**A shoutout to giacinta, who prompted me to start writing this story again, and to AngelisIgniRelucent, who's been with me since I started posting and always leaves the kindest reviews. And to all my other reviewers as well—I read every single one, and they all mean a lot to me.**

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Jo Harvelle has never thought of herself as the jealous type.

She was a one-night-stand kind of girl, a call-you-later-but-we-both-know-that-isn't-true kind of girl. She was the kind of girl who knew what she signed up for, who knew how to cut her losses and knew what it was to let go. She thought maybe he was different, a kindred spirit, until she met his brother.

It wasn't like it was a surprise. Everybody talked about them, about those two Winchester boys and how their daddy was a hunter, until he died. Because they all die, in the end, and Jo knows it, too.

She thought maybe he was different, that maybe he would last a little longer than the others. He still died before he hit thirty—difference was, he came back. (She thought maybe he did for her, but it was for his brother, in the end. It always was.)

Sometimes Jo thought she really needed to stop thinking. Dean Winchester was a heartbreaker, a ladies' man with green eyes and a laugh that could light up a room and a penchant for fast cars and guns. A man whose life revolved around his brother, and he didn't love her. Maybe he could have, in another life. One where they'd had more time.

But even then—and she didn't like to admit it, only at night under the covers, when she could pretend it was all a dream—even then she didn't know. He was a curious man, and Jo heard rumors that he loved another. Lisa, she thought, and tried not to remember how much she'd always hated the name. He loved Lisa, and Jo comforted herself with the fact that she had a sneaking suspicion even Lisa did not own his whole heart. There was a part, she thought, that always had and always would belong to his brother, whether Sam was alive or dead, whether he was good or bad. Whether he was an addict, or a scholar.

Dean liked to pretend he was hard and cold and frozen, but in reality he loved more than Jo thought was possible, more than she thought was wise. Enough that she knew if he loved any more, his heart would burst, just like that.

He's sitting in front of her. His head is down—he's going through some old police records from Wichita, working on a case, and Jo tries not to stare because she's never been the lovestruck type. Because tomorrow, if Dean Winchester shows up possessed, she might have to shoot him—and she will, goddammit Jo will, because Sam never could and Bobby never would and if Ellen did it, Jo is afraid that she wouldn't really mind. Her mother is torn between a special kind of love and hatred for the Winchesters, a longing to have what they have with each other and a resentment that it can never be hers. She never really got over Jo's father's death, and she will carry the heavy weight of a grudge to her grave, because if Ellen Harvelle is anything in this world then _dammit_, she is stubborn.

Jo knows. She sees it sometimes, flickering in the firelight. The faint glimmer of jealousy in her mother's eyes.

Jo's never thought of herself as the jealous type—but come to think of it, maybe she got that from her mother.

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**All right. Quick disclaimer: This was written in approximately ten minutes, with zero editing, and personally I dislike it immensely but I think if I don't put **_**something **_**up I never will. So, don't judge. In fact, you don't even have to comment if you don't want to—I'm trying to come up with something better. It's difficult during the Hellatus, because the show seems so distant without any new material.**

**By the way, what are you guys hoping to see in season seven? Because personally, I long for the vibe of the early seasons, and I think season six kind of sucked, and I miss Kripke with the burning passion of a thousand suns.**

**Yeah. That much.**

**Love you all. *feels sentimental***


	7. Burning

_Okay, so this is horribly short, and I am sorry. Really, truly. I know a lot of you guys have been waiting for an update, and I told you I would update soon, and then I didn't because I am a horrible person, etc. etc. But know that I'm trying to find the inspiration to write for Supernatural right now - and the reason I'm even trying is because of you guys.  
_

_Things are kind of hectic right now. This is unedited, so—well, it's unedited. This one actually... kind of has a plot? Hell, I don't even know. I actually wrote the fourth part at the last minute while I was checking the document for typos, so... Make of it what you will.  
_

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I.

Sarah's mother always told her to marry a nice boy.

Sam Winchester is a nice boy, she reasons, hopes. He is sweet and funny and kind and dangerous, and she loves him. Or she thought she loved him. Sarah doesn't know anymore, can't separate what she remembers about Sam to what she wishes she remembered about Sam.

It has been three years since he kissed her and left, three years since the boy with the nice smile and the wry, self-deprecating sense of humor (as if he was almost a little uncomfortable in his own skin, as if maybe she could relate to him, could talk to him, and he wouldn't reject her because he _knew_) came into her life and then roared away with his brother and his fast car. She remembers Sam the way the sun is imprinted on the backs of your eyelids when you stare at the sky for too long—in painful, burning intensity, like the leftover light from a supernova. When she met him he looked as though it was his brother who usually shined, but Sarah did not see Dean Winchester, did not see anyone else from the moment he stepped into the room, whether she liked to admit it or not.

She loved Sam Winchester, or maybe she didn't. Sarah didn't know, but she wore his shirt for the longest time.

II.

His name is Eric. He is talking about his dog and his job and his house. He does not ask about her, but even if he did, Sarah would not tell him—she would not mention the handsome, sad-eyed boy, the one with the beautiful, broken smile and the sheepish laugh and the quiet compassion of someone who is not used to being gentle.

She does not tell him, and he does not ask, but she kisses him anyway because her mother always wanted her to marry a sweet, nice boy—the kind of boy who turns into a good man, the kind of boy who is a doctor or an accountant or a lawyer and goes to soccer games and watches football on Sundays and never kills spirits with a gun loaded with rock salt, never burns the bones of corpses in the dead of night. The kind of boy whose eyes are not haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Sam Winchester is not that boy, but Sarah has never been that girl.

III.

He left his number with her when he drove away. Sarah had not planned to call him that night, but it was late and she'd had too much to drink and it seemed like a good idea at the time. The phone rang and rang and finally beeped, his voice—she had forgotten how smooth his voice was—saying in short, clipped tones: _This is Sam. Leave a message._

She stood there for the longest time, the skeletons of words she could never say piling up in the back of her throat and making it hard to breathe. After a while she hung up, but sometimes, on her darkest nights, Sarah wonders if Sam ever got her message. If he could tell it was her just by her breathing, the way she had heard his low, quiet breaths in the dark of the crypt that night so many months ago and _known_, instinctively, that it was him.

But Sarah does not read romance novels. She reads textbooks and history books and biographies of people who are long-dead, and she does not daydream, and she does not pine (except every so often, except every once in a while over the sad-eyed, smiling boy). She dates Eric and waits for an excuse to dump him and then puts up with the pointed looks and long-suffering sighs, until the next boy comes along and she can wait for a chance to dump him, too.

Sarah is not a romantic, and she does not love Sam—but she does not lie, and it would be a lie to say that she loves anyone but Sam.

IV.

The day he comes back he is broken.

She doesn't know what it is, but she doesn't ask because Sam-that-was never liked to share, and she doesn't think Sam-that-is has changed. She is wrong, but that doesn't matter. He comes to her door broken and bloodshot, half-drowned in a bottle of beer, and his brother is not with him.

He died, she learned. He is dead. Sam doesn't tell her what happened, but she knows it wasn't natural causes. She knows it was supernatural.

She takes him in, lets him sleep on her couch, makes him food despite his protests and never asks why he came back. He doesn't tell, but Sarah doesn't really mind. It is enough just to be in his presence, enough just to close her eyes and not have to see his face burned into them like a fiery reminder. She tells him about her dog and her house and her job, because it's the sort of thing people talk about and anyway Sam doesn't really want to talk. She can tell, just like she can tell that he's taller and that's he's lost weight but gained muscle and that his face is haggard and tired and pained. She can tell by _looking_.

A few days later he leaves. He does not tell her where he's going, and he does not tell her why, just kisses her on the porch and then drives away with his fast car. Sarah watches him go without blinking until the tears dry, and then goes inside and calls his voicemail, letting it ring and ring and ring.

It's funny, Sarah thinks (except it isn't really funny at all). Twice she has kissed Sam Winchester, and both times she felt like she was burning.


End file.
